Encouraging of competitive relations and strengthening of competitive position of domestic producers on both national and EU common market of products and services become one of the main priorities of national economic policy. Latvian national interests are closely related to the maintenance of the competitive environment as an important factor for increase of competitiveness of separate commodity, enterprise or industry, which is able to provide economic growth in the circumstances of declining the business activity and strong competition on internal and external markets. However, fair market competition takes place only on the markets where there are no any essential obstacles and barriers for potential entry of new market actors. That is why the present article is prepared on the basis of case study carried out for Latvian grain processing sector with the purpose to describe and qualitatively assess the effects of various entry barriers, which really exist on the domestic market.

The paper expounds the results of a theoretical and practical research on the significance of presence of emotional intelligence in the manager's professiogram. The research aim is to ascertain the role of emotional intelligence in the manager's professiogram in the 21st century. To foster economic development and global competiveness in Latvia, it is necessary to promote quantitative and qualitative growth of innovative enterprises. To make an innovative enterprise perform successfully, the modern management theory and practice have set forth new requirements for enterprise managers - to develop an ability to be a manager-leader themselves. The manager-leader professiogram has to include competencies forming emotional intelligence. The results of a pilot research revealed that students studying the speciality of management and business (at Latvia University of Agriculture) have a quite low self-evaluation for several competencies of their emotional intelligence; besides, an even lower evaluation is awarded by study fellows and group members. Along with studying theoretical aspects of communication, self-cognition, and self-management, the study process for new specialists of management and business has to be arranged in a way that it promotes practical development and use of EI competencies.

Business activity of an enterprise is almost inconceivable without planning. Therefore today there are many discussions about the importance of activity planning of the enterprise and forecasting of the resources, necessary to reach the set tasks. For this reason the scientists and practicians offer to implement the budgeting system in the enterprises. This paper introduces the new budgeting model - Activity-Based Budgeting (ABB) model. It also contains the survey of advantages of this model and its applicability in theoretical aspect. The key objective of this paper is to present Activity-Based Budgeting (ABB) as an important means of planning and coordination of activity of the agricultural enterprise (or any other type of an enterprise). After performance of analysis of the main principles of Activity-Based Budgeting (ABB) model the reasoned conclusions can be drawn that application of this model in the agricultural enterprises could be the alternative means against the variable and changing economical and business conditions. It should be emphasized that contrarily to the traditional budgeting models; ABB can help to establish the connections between the incurred costs and the company processes. The paper contains ABB analysis based upon the scientific studies and the fragments of practical application of the model.

Zemgale planning region divides into two intra-regions (Zemgale 1 and Zemgale 2) by natural, soil and other agricultural resources. Each intra-region has different size of farms. The aim of the research was to find the structure of rural economy in different size farms or rural enterprises of Zemgale 1 and Zemgale 2 intra-regions. The research showed that very small farms dominate grow-plant sectors production. Medium size farms and enterprises have solid high proportion of grow-plant sector production in total production value. This proportion is even higher in biggest agricultural enterprises and companies (100 is less than or equal 250 ESU). In general author has stated that in Zemgale 1, which is the biggest agricultural production territory in Latvia, grow-plant production sectors dominate.

Recently we have been noticing words as 'sustainable development', 'environment protection', 'environmentally friendly' etc more and more often. We understand meaning of those concepts, but there are no unambiguous definitions of these words in literature. Each of these notions includes particular characterizing elements which understanding and characterizing of which make possible to detect correctness of application or context. Sustainability like entrepreneurship is a process which takes place within definite environment around it. Mutual interaction of the processes produces consequences which have to satisfy all the interested parties. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate several science branches to solve this problem- i. e. economics and ecology. Nowadays, environment issues become part of each person, institution, policy and law. Environmental questions are integrated in different fields of economics and entrepreneurship, as well. It is hard to define environmentally friendly entrepreneurship. But there is a flexible definition that could be used in different economical spheres with great variability of economical circumstances, and it is- characterised circumstances would not be secured for a long time, yet. It is complicated to define the concept since this is a value involving process. Values which are sources for idea of sustainable development are based on need to form society satisfying human interests and unthreatening future generations, necessity to secure economical growth including moral, social and ecological aspects.

The goal of the research was to evaluate the opportunities in preparation of logistics specialists offered by Latvian universities and to formulate problem solutions. To achieve the goal, study programmes and course syllabuses offered by Latvian universities and colleges were analysed from the logistics perspective. Opportunities to acquire logistics knowledge offered in Latvia by distance, in further education and life-long learning programmes were reviewed. In the end, it was concluded that the development of logistics education in Latvia does not correspond to the speed of the development of logistics industry. Currently Latvia offers 4 Logistics study programmes, but only one study programme offers education corresponding to the professional standard – Manager of Logistics Department – as approved by the MoES. Latvia University of Agriculture currently has no logistics study programmes but different logistics subjects are included in the study programmes of 4 Faculties, therefore there are vast opportunities and it is necessary to develop the offer of logistics education, first by giving students the opportunity to choose specialisation in logistics in the Faculties in the study areas of which logistics is especially important and necessary – Faculty of Economics, Technical Faculty, Faculty of Forestry, Faculty of Food Technology, and Faculty of Agriculture.

Highly polluted wastewater accumulates in milk collection stations. Its biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) ranges from 369 to 1388 mg O2 lE-1. The average contamination was 600 mg O2 lE-1. There was a comparatively small amount of biogenic materials in it: total nitrogen – 27.3, total phosphorus – 5.0 mg lE-1. When variations of wastewater amounts are high, sand filters of vertical filtration are successfully used for the treatment of household wastewater. Model investigations were carried out to establish the possibilities of using these filters in treating wastewater in milk collection stations. The efficiency of wastewater treatment with these filters was 99.3% by BOD5, 99.1% – by suspended solids, 91.2% – by total nitrogen and 98.8% – by total phosphorus. According to the research results dependency equations were made; they were used to calculate the amount of main contaminants in milk collection stations that infiltrated through a layer of silt of diff rent thickness. The calculations showed that wastewater treatment to permissible limits is ensured by filtration through 0.6 m thick layer of sand. The average treatment level by BOD5 in such a filter of vertical filtration would be 20 mg O2 lE-1 and the treatment efficiency – 95.9%. Treatment efficiency of total nitrogen would be 88.1%, total phosphorus – 96.9, suspended solids – 95.5%. Preliminary research in the model showed that sand filters of vertical filtration can be used to treat wastewater from milk collection stations.

Innovation capacity has to be viewed as a consequence of properly operating innovation system. Well established and functioning innovation system is a result of enhanced by government innovation policy. In comparison with other European Union (EU 27) countries, innovation capacity indicators in Latvia remain low and considerably underperform, reflected in the 'European Innovation Scoreboard 2008', where Latvia took the 30th place among 32 countries. Problems and solutions are illustrated to represent innovation capacity in Latvia. This article consists of the following parts: first - theoretical aspects are selected to describe the essential definition of the analyzed subject. In the second part, experience from abroad is described, at the end – Latvian innovation policy and situation is analyzed and suggestions for further needs are formulated. The main results of analysis show that only a few elements of innovation capacity building are functioning at Latvian enterprises, whose aim is to build a base for the innovation capacity of the country.

Entrepreneurial activity in various regions of Latvia is one of the most actual topics for politicians at many levels. The aim of this paper is to characterize entrepreneurial activity in the Kurzeme Region in the context of municipalities analysing the accessible statistical data. The entrepreneurial activity in the Kurzeme Region is analyzed both in general and in the context of municipalities in this paper. Analyzing accessible statistical data, one can draw a conclusion that the entrepreneurial activity in the Kurzeme Region is not even. It testifies that the factors which influence entrepreneurial activity development in some areas are to be searched at the level of municipalities. In addition, the analysis of data specifies various correlations. For example, the smallest number of merchants per 1000 inhabitants in Kurzeme region is in relatively small border municipalities, but higher results are in large cities and local authorities who comprise larger cities or in municipalities which border with larger towns. It is similarly discovered that in Kurzeme region there is a smaller amount of self-employed persons in local authorities with a large number of merchants per 1000 inhabitants and vice versa. There are also exceptions, further research is necessary to justify such correlations.

The article analyses organizational internal and external environments, their possible correlations with 4 components of sustainability, and the principal determination models for sustainability of organizations. Based on the general principles of sustainable development organizations, a model for the determination of organizational sustainability has been developed. The use of self-organizing neural networks allows the identification of the external sustainability of each forest enterprise and the endeavour to explore vital, social, anthropogenic and economical efficiency. The determination of the forest enterprise external sustainability is expected to help better manage the external sustainability of forest enterprises and explain the reasons for a respective level of external sustainability.